Explores what Proust had to say about friendship, reading, looking carefully, paying attention taking your time, being alive. This book also contains the author's own commentary on Proust.

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the USA. Before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, he took one last trip around the UK, and in this book, he turns an affectionate but laconic eye on his adopted country.

Provides a digest of consolations for many of our psychological ills.

This history of reading goes from the earliest examples of the clay tablets and cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to today's digital revolution. It argues that it is the demands of the reader, acting alongside the will of the writer, that is the evolutionary motor of literary genres.

An account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town. Instead he finds a continent that is doubly lost: lost to itself because it is blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; and lost to him because he has become a foreigner in his own country.

Looks at the psychology of men and women in love, as it portrays a modern relationship between Alice and Eric. Some of the themes explored include the question of knowing one's partner in a relationship, the issue of power between people, and the link between love, sex and shopping.